Please vote: Bombardment to cut off supply

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I just tested that it's possible to cut off supply to the Gibraltar fortress and I noticed that if you bomb the city production down to 0 it will cease to be a supply source until it produces above 0. That means you can bombard units out of supply.

This means there is an inconsistency between fortresses and cities because cities always provide supply level 3 regardless of bombardment.

We need to fix this one way or another and I want you to vote on what you want.

1a. Make it possible to bombard ALL capitals, cities and fortresses so they cease to exist as supply sources with supply level 3 once bombard production down. Major country capitals will still provide supply level 5 from the capital and out to the cities. So this change will only affect isolated cities. Supply will be cut when the city name is shown with red color. That means the internal strength in the city is bombarded down to 2 steps remaining.

1b. Fix the inconsistency so fortresses with production > 0 will always provide supply regardless of bombardment

Can you please make a quick vote so I can get this into hotfix 10 that will go to Slitherine tomorrow.?

[JimR]

I favor 1a. This represents cities' reduction to rubble, which did happen either due to air or artillery bombardment, house-to-house fighting, or a combination of all these.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

True. You need to keep the city suppressed to keep it out of supply. To make it simple only cities with red names will not provide supply. That's consistent with port attack etc. You regain one strength per turn so if you get it down to 0 strength (10 hits) it will take 2 turns until it can provide supply again.

You can always use surface naval ships to provide supply level 1 to units in the pocket to prevent them from losing steps from being out of supply.

I think this change will make it easier to take Malta and Gibraltar. You need to suppress the city with heavy bombardment from strategic bombers and then the Malta fortress gets out of supply. Now you can hit the unit there because it can't repair once out of supply. So you can keep one strategic bomber to suppress the strength of the fortress and one tac bomber to remove steps plus naval bombardment etc. It means Malta will be easier to capture. Maybe that makes it too easy and we should be careful about allowing supply from being cut completely. The Allied player can send a naval unit adjacent to Malta (port for example) so it provides supply level 1 to counter this, but that makes the naval unit vulnerable to bombardment instead.

[amcdonel]

I vote for 1a also...

[schwerpunkt]

My only concern with 1 a is because of the "unit out of supply unit loses steps rule". I think those with a port should have at least SL1 to reflect minimal supply still managing to come in (eg Leningrad, Malta, Odessa, Gibralter) . Otherwise my vote is 1b due to unforseen consequences.....

[rkr1958]

1a. I this this adds an interesting and historical dimension to the game.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

It's possible to have a condition where a city or fortress without supply will get low supply instead of no supply if a port is attached to the city. So we can certainly make that option 1a.

[pk867]

Hi

I vote 1a with the latest addition Borger just added about attached ports.

[richardsd]

I vote 1a but with the port addition

[schwerpunkt]

I vote 1a but with the port addition

yep, I'm onboard too!

[rkr1958]

1a. I this this adds an interesting and historical dimension to the game.

O.K. I'll go with 1a with a minimum of SL1 for forts/cities with an attached port.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I've now implemented the changes like Neil suggested and sent them to Ronnie and Paul. It means we now have all files needed for the installer that will be sent to Slitherine.

Neil has also tested the other changes we made to counter the German armor blob and it seems to work pretty well now so we will go to release with what we have.

The only change we made was to significantly increase the spawn chance of partisans in capitals/cities/fortresses/oilfields/mines/airfields in core hexes in unconquered Germany, UK, USA, USSR

The reason is that the armor blob relied upon just sending all units eastwards as fast as possible without bothering to garrison any cities in Russia. With the change you will see about 1.5 partisans spawning in cities per turn in 1941 if you not garrison any of the cities. So it will be better to garrison several of them now with Axis minor units etc. That's what most players do and this also draws rail cap that means fewer corps deep into Russia by rail movement unless you risk more partisans.

We didn't add these for Italy and France because these countries didn't have very motivated citizens that would take up arms to fight the invaders. In France people were demoralized and it was only after defeat the French resistance was formed. Italy made peace with the Allies when they landed on the mainland and most Italians just wanted out of the war.

German "partisans" spawning in cities can be seen as fanatical Hitler youth units not giving in the the Allied might.

US partisans will rarely be needed, but those can be seen as US soldiers coming in from outside the map, thus the need to garrison captured US cities.

British partisans can be seen as the resistance movement after Sealion. If Germany withdrew many units from England to fight on the continent these soldiers would spawn and create problems for the German units remaining in England by revolts in cities etc.

Russian partisans are well known for being fierce and they easily recruited soldiers from the Russian population in occupied Russia. They were held in check in cities by German garrisons and if the Germans had neglected this then the Russians would easily have revolted in the city. Most Russians hated the nazis and fought for their motherland, even in occupied countries. The Baltic states and Eastern Poland aren't part of core Russia so the increased spawn rate doesn't apply there. In the beginning the Ukrainians welcomed the Germans, but that soon stopped when they realized the Germans were even worse that Stalin ever was. So partisans formed there too.

Also part of hotfix 10 will be the bugfix for para range now being automatically upgraded by strategic operations tech increase and message about Spain being outraged if Allies DoW Portugal will now only show is Spain is neutral.

[Blathergut]

Thanks for all the effort!